Hyphenated-nationAs if we aren’t already divided enough by race, class, gender, political party, economic status and sexual orientation, the federal government is reportedly thinking about creating a new category of Americans just in time for the next census. According to the Associated Press, “The U.S. Census Bureau will test the new Middle East-North Africa classification for possible inclusion on the 2020 census if it gets positive feedback about the propos...

The race is on (Feb. 8, 2015)Editor’s note: Will Berry is a member of the board of directors for the RussVegas Half Marathon and Relay. He will write a column about various topics relating to the half-marathon in the weeks leading up to the April 10-11 event. This week he did a Q & A with two of the winners from last year’s event. Carson Miller, 19, of Dover was the 2014 RussVegas Overall Winner with a time of 1:18:52. How long have you been running? I ran my first race w...

Robbery suspect arrested after wallet left behindIt was easy for authorities in central Florida to find a robbery suspect. They said he left his wallet at a Cape Canaveral convenience store he’s accused of robbing. The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said Benjamin Alexander Shaw, 25, demanded money from a Circle K store clerk Monday night, threatening to return with a gun if he refused. An arrest report stated Shaw got $40 and left the store. Police arrived and the clerk handed them Shaw’s w...

Larger fights may loom in sessionLITTLE ROCK — Arkansas lawmakers made quick work of the two biggest issues facing them this year: approving a $102 million tax cut and keeping the state’s compromise Medicaid expansion alive another year. That doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing for the remainder of a legislative session. Questions about the state’s lottery, prison overcrowding and a potential push for additional tax cuts could complicate the legislative leaders’ efforts for a re...

Computer science picks up speedLITTLE ROCK — Last week was our third full week into the legislative session. Our legislators have worked extremely hard and accomplished key milestones in our effort to create more jobs in Arkansas. Our plan to offer computer science classes in every high school in Arkansas passed the House and is now on to the state Senate. This is exciting news for Arkansas’s students and for the future of our state. Over the next decade, it’s estimated tha...

Local health careOn Dec. 13, 2014, I fell at home and broke my hip. I was treated with empathy and professionalism by all my caregivers at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center. The EMTs in the ambulance, the ER team, telemetry, the ICU staff and the rehab folks were all wonderful. I am afraid to start naming names for fear I will leave someone out. However, special thanks to Dr. Owen Kelly who nailed me back together. Thanks to all of the above for the great c...

Several issues still before usLITTLE ROCK — In less than a month’s time, this General Assembly has tackled tax cuts, health care, and made significant advancements in education. On Friday, Governor Hutchinson signed a bill to lower income tax in our state by 1 percent. This will amount to a savings of around $300 a year for a family making $50,000. It directly affects 600,000 taxpayers making between $21,000 and $75,000 a year. The other big development this week came when...

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State House of RepresentativesThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

The race is on (Feb. 1, 2015)Editor’s note: Will Berry is one of the board of directors for the RussVegas Half Marathon and Relay. He will write a column about various topics relating to the half-marathon in the weeks leading up to the April 10-11 event. Why run? Could you imagine paying your hard earned money to endure the physical and mental challenge of training for and finishing a half-marathon, marathon or an even greater distance? There was a time when parents and t...

News flash: This could save a lifeCONWAY — Much to the chagrin of the U.S. Postal Service, there is a better, faster and cheaper way to get information to a large number of people at the same time. It is called email, and I use it all the time. Many of my readers also use it to email information to me and, while I can’t use all of it, occasionally I get something so good that I feel compelled to pass it along. What I received from a man by the name of Jim Duran is a fourth ind...

Stormy weather and politicsIt was refreshing to see meteorologists apologize for their dire — and wrong — predictions of an unprecedented snow storm that they had said would devastate the northeast. It was a big storm, but the northeast has seen lots of big snow storms before and will probably see lots of big snow storms again. That’s called winter. Unfortunately, we are not likely to hear any similar apologies from those who have been promoting “global warming” hysteri...

The faith factor (2016 edition)We are one year away from the Iowa caucuses and already several Republican presidential candidates are trying to secure an advantage by talking about their faith. Before announcing his non-candidacy last Friday, Mitt Romney had indicated if he ran for a third time he intended to be more “open” about his Mormon faith. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, regularly invokes his Baptist faith. And now Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wiscons...

The power of personalityThis week marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II. Churchill took up painting as a hobby in 1915, after the Gallipoli debacle, where 46,000 allied lives were lost over nine months of the campaign. He went on to paint more than 500 paintings during his lifetime. As wartime prime minister, he took a break from painting, focusing instead on the task at hand — winning the war, ...

Obama versus AmericaIn his recent trip to India, President Obama repeated a long-standing pattern of his — denigrating the United States to foreign audiences. He said he had been discriminated against because of his skin color in America, a country in which there is, even now, “terrible poverty.” Make no mistake about it, there is no society of human beings in which there are no rotten people. But for a President of the United States to be smearing America in a f...

Voters should select, not elect, judgesThe recent admission of bribery by former circuit judge Michael Maggio is an example of why Arkansas should consider changing the way it fills judicial offices — still relying on average citizens, but not by using elections. Maggio pleaded guilty Jan. 9 to a felony bribery charge and now probably is on his way to prison. He had reduced a jury verdict against a nursing home operator from $5.2 million to $1 million two days after receiving large...

Awful executive sessions billFrom what originally appeared to be an honorable attempt to improve the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, state Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, is now pushing a bill that would strike at the very foundation of the state’s model access law. Bell is sponsoring House Bill 1054, titled “An Act to Preserve the Integrity of Executive Sessions ...” If that’s what it would actually do, he would have strong support from Arkansas news organizations, which re...

Hutchinson shrinks 'no' caucus on MedicaidLITTLE ROCK — The “heck no” caucus on Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion is turning into a very lonely place. Winning over a coalition of supporters of Arkansas’ private option and lawmakers who were ushered into office on vows to kill it, Gov. Asa Hutchinson cleared a major hurdle in his plan to continue the program while looking at longer term changes. A larger fight may loom in the House, but the Republican governor is already showing an ability ...

Bats cause mayhem, send people screaming from courtThere was disorder in the court when 30 bats flew inside a De Queen courtroom during a trial. The Texarkana Gazette reported several people ducked, screamed and ran from the room Thursday as the bats swooped into the room at the Sevier County Courthouse. One bat tried to bite a deputy who caught it and held it by the wings while onlookers took photos. The bats calmed down after the lights were turned off and court was moved elsewhere. Circuit ...

Another book you should readOn our quest to become ever more literate, I think it’s important to ask ourselves, “Why do we read and write literature?” We write and we read first and foremost to communicate. We put words on a page to explain the things we’ve seen and the things we feel. As being of extraordinary emotional depth, we have wrestled for centuries to find the words to cage the way we feel. That’s why we invented metaphor. That’s precisely what a simile is. But...

Vestiges of rotten boroughsHow is it possible to have a president chosen by the United States Electoral College without his/her having a majority or even a plurality of the popular vote? The answer is that the U.S. still has vestiges of a “rotten borough” system. The borough was an administrative unit in England. The phrase “rotten borough” came from 18th century England when many people moved from the rural areas to the cities as a result of the industrial revolution. ...

New jobs and tax cutsLITTLE ROCK — It was a good week in and out of the Capitol for the people of Arkansas: Let’s start with the big jobs announcement at the end of the week. On Thursday, we welcomed three new technology firms and 140 new jobs to downtown Conway. These knowledge-based, big data jobs are a foundational part of the future of our economy. The arrival of these new technology companies to Arkansas is a tribute to the leadership in Conway, which has inv...